You’d have to be born without a sense of wonder to resist the pull of the glass enclosure housing the BurgerBot at the rear of the dining room at Breaking Dawn Brunch in Los Gatos. It’s built to slice onions, tomatoes and lettuce and dispense condiments and pickles to top burgers coming on a conveyor belt from the kitchen.

Owner Elizabeth Truong spent seven years developing the mechanical wonder, though she said “everyone thought I was nuts.” Then she opened Breaking Dawn in 2024 as proof automation can work collaboratively with human chefs.

“I wanted to solve a problem in the industry,” she told San José Spotlight. “Chefs stay chefs and bartenders stay bartenders. But prep work, which most people don’t want to do, sees the highest turnover in restaurants. I wanted to take away the monot

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